Guidelines on Vehicle Overload Control in Eastern and Southern Africa
Heavy goods vehicle overloading is a serious problem across much of Sub-Saharan Africa. Such overloading not only significantly accelerates the rate of deterioration of road pavements but, when coupled with inadequate funding for road maintenance,...
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| Format: | Working Paper |
| Language: | English en_US |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2014
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| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2010/03/15826442/guidelines-vehicle-overload-control-eastern-southern-africa http://hdl.handle.net/10986/17778 |
| Summary: | Heavy goods vehicle overloading is a
serious problem across much of Sub-Saharan Africa. Such
overloading not only significantly accelerates the rate of
deterioration of road pavements but, when coupled with
inadequate funding for road maintenance, it contributes
significantly to poor road conditions and high transport
costs. The indicative cost of overloading in East and
Southern Africa has been estimated at more than US$4 billion
per annum. This exceeds the amounts being spent on road
rehabilitation. Therefore, unless the problem is tackled
head on, it will negate the expected benefits from the huge
amounts of resources that countries and donors are investing
into improved road infrastructure across the continent. The
cost associated with vehicle overloading can be avoided
through effective control measures. The guidelines presented
here are an important contribution to tackling the challenge
of vehicle overloading in East and Southern Africa. The
solutions should be relevant to other parts of Africa as
well as to other developing regions of the world. The
document makes two facts very apparent: there are in various
countries numerous examples of effective overload control
strategies which have shown positive results and vehicle
axle load control is a multidisciplinary and
multi-stakeholder effort. In other words, vehicle overload
control is not an intractable problem and can be tackled
effectively with benefits to all road users and to society
at large. |
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